Platinum metal and other noble metals such as, but not limited to, palladium or gold is used as an electro-catalyst to speed up an electrochemical process of interest. Generally, the platinum or other noble metals used in electro-catalytic applications are required to be in finely dispersed form as catalytic activities are critically tied to particle size of the catalyst. The platinum metal and other noble metals are expensive and therefore, there is a necessity to optimize the amount of such metals when used in the electro-catalytic applications. To obtain efficient metal nanoparticle catalyst, there is a necessity to have a highest possible degree of metal dispersion and smaller particle size particularly for expensive noble metals such as platinum. Various conventional methods such as, but not limited to, a wet impregnation, an ion exchanging and a chemical surface modification are used to prepare metal nanoparticle catalysts. The particle size of the metal nanoparticle catalysts prepared using the conventional methods may not satisfy the requirement of high degree of metal dispersion and smaller particle size.
Thus, there is a need to develop an improved method for synthesizing platinum nanoparticles.